By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
In this year’s EuroLeague Round 5, Panathinaikos had the better of Baskonia, beating Joan Peñarroya’s team 95-81 to go 2-3 at the start of the 2023-24 Regular Season, and the Turkish head coach touched on several topics in the post-game press conference.
For example, he pointed out that his team is still on the market. “[Ioannis] Papapetrou’s injury has upset me because last year he played the whole year in Partizan and in the World Cup. The truth is we need two players and we are looking at the market, that is the reality. We want a 3 and a guard to help [Kostas] Sloukas in the 1-2. I don’t know if we will get them both but those are our needs. Our president agrees with this, but is difficult to add somebody at the moment”, he commented.
Later on, he said that Juancho Hernangomez “should understand his own role in this position”, playing as the potentially most decisive power forward of the team, and he emphasized the lack of experience of some of his players. “We are building a new quality team, but the big truth is that in this team only Kostas Sloukas has Final-4 experience. Players must understand the difficulty of the Euroleague level. It’s not like playing 7-8 minutes in the NBA or the Eurocup or some other less dynamic league”, the former Anadolu Efes head coach added.